Faith’s War

Shirley Mann

A YOUNG nurse must face bombs, bullets and the ruins of an island in the dark days of war as she works to not just save the lives of wounded Maltese residents, but to dig out the mysterious beginnings of her own early life.

Faith’s War is the sixth story celebrating the role of women during wartime in a fascinating saga series from Derbyshire-based journalist Shirley Mann (pictured below) who follows up her compelling sagas, Lily’s War, Bobby’s War, Hannah’s War, Bridget’s War and Maggie’s War, with another exciting, revealing and emotion-filled story.

Featured this time is a story honouring the Second World War endurance and courage of the people of Malta, the small, seventeen-mile-long  island which was famously described by Winston Churchill as ‘an unsinkable aircraft carrier’ and which became the vital key to dominance in the Mediterranean. As a result of its strategic importance, the island was under siege and subjected to 15,000 tons of bombs during the war, making it one of the most intensely bombed places in the world. In 1941 and 1942, there were 3,000 raids and only one 24-hour period without a raid between January and July of 1942.

When nurse Faith Simcock arrives in Malta in 1941, the tiny island at the heart of the Mediterranean is at the tipping point of the Second World War. As bombs rain down and danger is ever present, Faith tends the wounded in the darkness beneath the ancient stone of Valletta’s fortifications.

But Faith has a deeper connection to Malta than just her medical posting. Before she left her home in Manchester, her parents dropped their own bombshell when they revealed that she was adopted and that her birth mother is Maltese. Angry that her mother and father had never told her she was adopted, armed only with a rusty old tin of photographs from an unknown great aunt, and dreading discovering what ‘monsters’ were lurking in her past, Faith is drawn into a search for a family history she never knew existed.

Torn between a growing attraction to the brusque and withdrawn doctor, Major David Taylor, and her longing to uncover the truth of her origins, Faith navigates a world under siege. And as the island is relentlessly blasted by bombs and the residents face starvation, Faith must find the courage to fight on and survive… and find out where, on this island, she truly belongs.

Mann plunges readers into the maelstrom of Malta in wartime and pays a special tribute to the few old Gladiator planes there which took to the skies as the only defence against Italian bombers and were affectionately known to the island’s 75,000 residents as Faith, Hope and Charity.

Against this compelling and dramatic backdrop of wartime privations and constant danger, nurse Faith’s story – and her search for a birth mother she never knew existed – becomes a tale of self-discovery, family, unexpected romance, impossible choices, and survival against the odds. 

And as a final reminder of Malta’s immense courage and sacrifice in keeping the island from being completely overwhelmed, and to the 9,000 people who died during the years of struggle, Mann recalls the fact that every man, woman and child on Malta was awarded the George Cross. The perfect blend of history, mystery, hardship and hope…
(Zaffre, paperback, £9.99)